The Parent Trap Review: Revisited 22 Years Later
Another day stuck in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. My roommates and I took a nostalgia trip and watched a childhood classic, The Parent Trap, starring Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson.
In case you don’t remember, The Parent Trap is about 2 girls (both played by Lindsay Lohan) who attend the same summer camp and discover they are twins. Hallie has lived with her dad in California her whole life, while Annie has lived with her mom in London. They decide to switch places so that they can get to know the other parent they’ve always dreamed about. They also figure that once the parents discover the truth they will be forced to meet again and hopefully rekindle their feelings for one another. Once they switch Annie discovers her father has become involved with another woman and is getting married. The other woman, Meredith (Elaine Hendrix) is not nice and Annie hates her immediately. Hallie and Annie decide to fast track the plan to bring their parents together and break up their father’s new relationship.
As a kid, the thing I remember most about The Parent Trap was the pranks. The twins play pranks on eachother at camp and then work together to play pranks on their father’s new fiance to break them up. The prank scenes held up and were not too slapstick as some movies with comedy involving pranks like this become. I also realized the pranks were not as big a part of the film as I thought.
The movie is much more heartfelt then I remember, I honestly got a bit emotional when each child met their respective parent for the first time. Lindsay Lohan does a great job playing two roles and it is very convincing that they are in fact two different people. The entire cast does a really fantastic job. Good kids movies are hard to make. Good ones are entertaining and simple enough for kids to understand while still being complex enough emotionally to hold adults interest. The Parent Trap does a pretty good job at this and really holds up as an adult. I wouldn't say it's my go to kids film as an adult, like some of the Pixar movies, but as far as Disney live-action goes it's solid.
If you would like to hear more about The Parent Trap, go check out the new episode of my roommate Brandon's podcast, Nostalgia Be Damned. In the podcast they go through the movie in depth and discuss whether or not it holds up. And if you'd like to go down the nostalgia train for yourself, go watch The Parent Trap which is streaming on Disney+ now!.